Politics|Investigators Questioned Giuliani as Part of Leak Inquiry, He Says

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Investigators Questioned Giuliani as Part of Leak Inquiry, He Says

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President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani last month at the White House. He said that he had told investigators for the Justice Department’s inspector general that he had not learned anything before the public did.CreditCreditDoug Mills/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani was questioned this year in an inquiry into whether he was told about the F.B.I.’s reopening of the Hillary Clinton email investigation before it was disclosed to Congress and the public, he confirmed on Tuesday.

During an hourlong interview in Washington in February, Mr. Giuliani said, he told investigators for the Justice Department’s inspector general that he had not learned anything before the public did.

Mr. Giuliani, a Trump campaign supporter, made statements in late October 2016 on Fox News hinting that a surprise was coming about Mrs. Clinton before Election Day. The inspector general is examining leaks from the F.B.I. during the presidential campaign, including what prompted Mr. Giuliani’s statement, but he said it was about another subject entirely.

“I was talking about a possible speech Trump would give the Friday before the election on national television in which he would outline all the reasons that he should be elected and crooked Hillary should go to jail,” Mr. Giuliani said.

He said he told investigators that he had only spoken with retired F.B.I. agents during the campaign about how Mr. Comey had handled the email investigation but that they did not share with him any sensitive information about the inquiry.

He said that a friend, the New York lawyer Marc L. Mukasey, accompanied him for the interview at the offices of his former law firm, Greenberg Traurig, which parted ways last month with Mr. Giuliani. He had told HuffPost, which first reported his interview with investigators, that he was questioned at the Trump Hotel in Washington, but Mr. Giuliani said he had misspoken.

The F.B.I.’s investigation into whether Mrs. Clinton mishandled classified information shadowed her throughout the campaign. The F.B.I. director at the time, James B. Comey, was criticized in a new inspector general report for flouting Justice Department policy to announce at a news conference in July that the bureau was not recommending she be charged. The investigation was closed soon after.

In late September, F.B.I. agents in New York discovered possible new evidence in the case when they found relevant emails on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, the now-estranged husband of Huma Abedin, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton.

About a month later, Mr. Comey wrote to Congress, informing members that the F.B.I. had found the emails. The revelation upended the campaign in its final days, and Democrats have said he cost Mrs. Clinton the election.

But it was the timing of Mr. Giuliani’s remarks to Fox News that stirred suspicions that he had inside knowledge of the F.B.I.’s Clinton email investigation.

Two days before Mr. Comey’s letter to lawmakers, he told Fox News: “I do think that all of these revelations about Hillary Clinton finally are beginning to have an impact. He’s got a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next two days.”

Mr. Comey later ordered an investigation into whether F.B.I. agents had tipped off Mr. Giuliani. Former and current F.B.I. agents have privately lamented that Mr. Giuliani’s grandstanding has hurt the reputation of the New York office.

At a congressional hearing on Monday, Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, declined to discuss the leak investigation. Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general, said his office continued to examine possible leaks as part of another investigation.

Last week, Mr. Horowitz released a lengthy report that looked at the F.B.I.’s actions in 2016. As part of the report, the inspector general reviewed more than 1.2 million documents and interviewed more than 100 people, including Loretta E. Lynch, the former attorney general.

As part of the review, Ms. Lynch recounted how she had complained to Mr. Comey in late October 2016 about the F.B.I. office in New York. According to Ms. Lynch, Mr. Comey told her that there was a “cadre of senior people in New York who have a deep and visceral hatred of Secretary Clinton.”

Mr. Comey agreed with Ms. Lynch that leaks from the New York office had become a problem.